96 Percent Of East Nusa Tenggara Region Entering The 2022 Dry Season, BMKG Warns Of Drought Threats

Illustration of BPBD distributing clean water to residents affected by drought. (ANTARA-Seno)

JAKARTA - Kupang Climatology Station, Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) reports that 96 percent of the area in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) has now entered the 2022 dry season.

"96 percent of the areas that have entered the dry season are spread across 22 seasonal zones (zom) out of a total of 23 zones in NTT," said the Head of the BMKG Kupang Class II Climatology Station, Rahmattulloh Adji, when confirmed in Kupang, NTT, Tuesday, August 2.

He said this was related to the development of the 2022 dry season in the NTT region which was renewed as of July 31.

Rahmattulloh said that there is only one zom in NTT that has not yet entered the dry season, namely the 262 zone on Timor Island, which is around Kupang Regency in the north and North Central Timor Regency in the south.

He said, most of the areas that have entered the dry season present a potential threat of drought which has an impact on the lack of clean water.

Therefore, the community needs to make efforts to anticipate the impact of drought in the form of increasing water supplies to meet needs during the dry season.

Agricultural activities, he continued, need to be prioritized on plants that do not require a lot of water which have the opportunity to produce yields to be harvested.

In addition, people in NTT also need to be aware of the potential for forest and land fires that can spread quickly during the dry season.

"Avoid activities that trigger hotspots in open areas so as not to trigger forest and service fires, which will be more difficult to control during the dry season," he said, according to Antara.

Rahmattulloh said that while people in areas that have not yet entered the dry season can take advantage of the remaining rainfall potential to increase the supply of clean water.

He appealed to the community to collect as much rainwater as possible during the dry season.